


Exchange Rate

by Poemsingreenink



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, M/M, Mild Gore, Violence, like a tiny bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-08-22 13:52:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink
Summary: Goodnight woke, and that was where the trouble started.





	1. Chapter 1

Goodnight woke, and that was where the trouble started.

He was shivering, and his shoulder was a throbbing mess of pain. He thought about trying to sit up, but couldn’t get his torso to obey that very simple order, and his mind was about as well put together as watery soup. Something wet slobbered all over his face and Goodnight grimaced. If a dog was about to make a meal of his cheekbones he supposed he should put up at least a tiny little fight before getting around to dying like a proper gentlemen.

“Goody? You awake over there? Do you know where you are?”

He wasn’t stupid. He knew this wasn’t the morning after a hard week of riding, and then harder drinking. This wasn’t the exhausting conclusion to a night locked away with Billy in a private room with a heavy door. This was Rose Creek, he was alive, and it was all terribly wrong. There’d been a very serious appointment between himself and Death, and he didn’t think Death took kindly to being stood up.

He opened his eyes.

Sam Chisholm was half perched on a cot playing a game of solitaire. The woman he recognized as Horne’s thankful seamstress stood to his left holding a dripping cloth, and a pail of water. She squeezed a fair amount of the water back into the bucket, and then folded the rag over his forehead. He didn’t know what kind of training she’d had, but to hose him down with such cold water when his teeth were chattering so loudly was just cruel.  

“Do you want to know how many bones you broke?” Sam asked, setting the ace of spades atop the blanket.

“Thirteen?” Goodnight rasped.

“Five.” Sam moved a long chain of cards over to cover the ace, a pretty little pattern of black and red all the way down. “Which is a miracle if I’ve ever seen one. Man falls out of a church bell tower after being peppered with lead and you expect to find a corpse. All that upset, and all you lost was your pretty gold tooth.”

Goodnight ran his tongue across his teeth, and poked experimentally at the unfamiliar gap. He wondered if there was an undertaker willing to fix it before they buried him.

“You should let the man rest, Mr. Chisholm,” Goodnight’s nurse said, firmly. “He’s still fighting a high fever, and I don’t think much of what he says will make a lick of sense.”

Fresh morning sunlight was pouring through the windows, and Goodnight was ready to fall back asleep when he heard it. An owl was a silent creature. Its powerful wings made no sound as it tracked its prey, and it wasn’t until it opened its clawed beak to announce itself that Goodnight knew that things were right back on track.

“The owl is coming, Sam.”

“What did I tell you? This fever has to break.”

The owl hooted again, the sound bouncing off the rafters of the tiny little school room. Goodnight struggled to sit, and only managed it in the end when Chisholm crossed the room to help.

“I hear it,” he gasped. “It’s come to collect.”

“There is no owl, Goody,” Sam said.

But it was the wrong voice telling him that his dreams were just dreams. That they couldn’t get him in the waking world, and Goodnight had witnessed the damage that predator could inflict on a paralyzed creature with a racing heart.

The owl circled him from above, its broad ghostly face peering down as it prepared to land. It dipped its wings, dropped with clawed feet outstretched, and then sailed right over Goodnight’s head.

There were two more beds in the room. One had Horne who was watching the proceedings with increasing alarm. The last one had Billy who must have been unconscious rather than just asleep. Not many men could sleep through a heavy barn owl landing square atop their chests, and Billy was a lighter sleeper than most.  

“No.”

There was a particular way that this dream unspooled, and Goodnight knew what was on the horizon.

“No! You can’t!”

“Goodnight! Get a hold of yourself.”

The owl buried its beak into Billy’s heart. Billy, to his credit didn’t even whimper.

“Those deaths are on my head! You can’t change it. They’re mine to answer for! You get off him.”

His shoulder shrieked when he reached for Sam’s gun, pulling it out of the holster to the alarmed shouts of everyone in the room.

Drops of ruby-bright blood splashed across Billy’s unmoving face as the owl lifted its head; something wet and delicate hanging from its beak.

He had the beast in his sights when someone dug their fingers into one of his healing bullet wounds. He vision blurred, and the dark swallowed Goodnight whole.

 

* * *

 

For a second time, Goodnight woke.

His head was clear, and he was cleaner than he’d been in days. The sheets were fresh, as was the nightshirt, but he didn’t expect those to stay smelling nice for long since the room was hotter than hades. Even with the door propped open he was sweating up a storm.

The bed on the opposite wall was empty except for a half-finished game of solitaire. He wondered if Faraday had survived, but he'd thought Faraday was too much of a social animal to play that particular card game.

“Chisholm told me you tried to shoot Horne.”

Surprised, Goodnight turned to see Billy stretched out in the bed next to his. There was another bed against the far wall where Horne was snoring softly, a throwing ax cuddled against his chest.

“I do not recall that,” Goodnight admitted. His thoughts were a mad scramble of blood, feathers and a looming promise which was no different than any other night, and the particulars were hard to make out.

Billy turned his head, and one of the last rays of red sunlight illuminated his face. He was beautiful. He looked like death warmed over, and he was still all Goodnight wanted to see. He was also too far away, and it wasn’t something Goodnight appreciated all that much. Billy had been too far away since they’d joined this suicide mission.

“I said I didn’t mind switching since I didn’t think you would try to shoot me.”

“Switching what?” Goodnight asked.

“Beds.”

Goodnight ran his tongue over his teeth. Falling from of a church tower was going to have consequences, and he hoped a broken set of pearly whites wasn’t one of them. There was a gap where his gold tooth had been, and the inside of his cheek was bleeding a little like he’d given it a good hard bite, but that was all.

“How do you feel, Goodnight?” Billy asked.

Goodnight laughed, which immediately turned into a grimace as his ribs grumbled. “How do I _feel_? Oh I’m fit as a fiddle. Pretty as a picture. We should shine our boots, comb our hair and go out dancing.”

Billy snorted, his eyes drifting closed. A pang of terror struck Goodnight’s heart. He wanted Billy awake, and alert. It was a ridiculous thought. The battle for Rose Creek was over, and Goodnight was the one with ghoulish specters out for his hide.

“That’s not what I mean,” Billy said, voice slippery with exhaustion. “You’re _alive,_ Goody. You were wrong. There was no owl, and you’re alive. That doesn’t bring you peace?”

Goodnight poked his tongue through the empty hole where his gold tooth had once been. The feeling clawing through his guts was harsher and meaner than the one he’d felt leaving everyone else behind to die while he rode for safety. Something had changed. He’d changed something, and it was all wrong.

“Billy,” Goodnight started. “I-”

But there was nothing to say. Goodnight didn’t even have his dreams as evidence this time, and Billy hadn’t thought those held much water anyway.

“I think we should stay here for a while,” was what he eventually said. “At least until we’re both healed up.”

_Until I can fix whatever it is I broke this time._

He got no answer. Billy was already gone, his breath even and slow. Goodnight watched him for a while, and then settled back into his own bed.

The loud creaking of the floorboards announced Sam's arrival before his voice did.

“Goodnight, if you go for my gun again I will bash you over the head.”

He scooped the cards up, the pretty red and black patterns snapped and scattered before he shuffled them into a neat pile, and pocketed the deck.

“What the hell would I want with your gun?” Goodnight asked. “I got my good looks. That’s enough to bring all of humanity to their knees.”

Sam chuckled. “Yeah, you’re lucky your pretty face survived that bell-tower swan dive. You want to know how many bones you broke?”

Goodnight pondered the answer for a moment. “Thirteen?”

Sam sat on the bed across from him, and kicked off his boots. “Five.”


	2. Chapter 2

Billy took a step off the porch, and felt something soundly crunch underneath the heel of his boot. Surprised, he lifted the shoe to inspect for damage and grimaced at what greeted him. There was at least half a dead mouse clinging to it, and if it had still been alive he'd just successfully put an end to its suffering.

It was far from the worst thing he'd ever stepped in, and he scrapped the guts off in the dirt before starting his walk for the second time. Not that it mattered much when he started walking. It wasn't like there was a schedule to keep.   

Clouds of dust kicked up around his heels as he strolled through Rose Creek. His still healing body was stiffer than he was used to, but he'd been lucky, all things considered. Faraday and Horne were still abed, and while Goodnight was up he was limping around with the help of a donated cane.

_Good for an old man like me to have a walking stick._

Billy’d had his ribs broken by a cane like that when he’d been fourteen, and he couldn’t wait for Goodnight to be rid of it.

Technically, Billy wasn't supposed to be wandering around yet either. He still tired too easily, and the doctor they'd collected from two towns over was adamant that he not "waste the miracle of his survival" by passing out in the middle of the road and allowing vultures access to his softer bits. If he'd had his way, Billy would still be in bed, but the doctor clearly didn’t understand what it was like to share a room with an injured Josh Faraday. Billy would rather deal with the vultures.

The town was buzzing with activity. The church was still being rebuilt, and most of its citizens still weren’t ready to leave one another after all the excitement and tragedy.

A Rose Creek resident caught his eye as he passed, and Billy was grateful when all he did was nod. It was still too strange being greeted, being _thanked,_ instead of weighed, measured and found wanting everywhere he went. People gawked opening at him in this country. Pointed when they were feeling kind. Did worse when they weren’t. Blending in had never been an option, so instead he'd opted for looking dangerous and aloof. It was a successful, well-honed trick that had never failed him.

“Mr. Rocks?”

Billy jumped a foot, and the muscles in his back immediately screeched. He reached for knives that weren’t there, and in their absence made a fist that was about to fly when he saw that the speaker was an old woman in a bright blue bonnet.

“Hello there, young man.”

He could hear Goodnight cackling in his head. Billy was in his forties (or at least he’d been telling everyone that for so long that it felt true). He hadn’t been a ‘young man’ in over two decades.

 _What am I always saying?_ _You have aged with the grace of a prima ballerina, Mr. Rocks._

It probably should have worried him that in the absence of a flesh-and-blood Goodnight, he had his own travel version living inside his mind, but it didn’t.

“Hello,” he said, cautiously.

A pie was shoved into his hands.

“Much obliged to you!” she called over her shoulder as she walked away. “I hope you like raspberries.”

Billy didn’t, but he didn’t say that.  Instead, he turned to watch her slow retreat with the smell of sugar and pastry filling his nose.

That was when he saw the children. They scattered under his sharp glance, but a gaggle of them had clearly been following him at a safe distance for a while. He wished they wouldn't. He wished they would go home. Or to church or wherever it was that children went when their towns hadn’t been turned upside down and shook. He had no idea what to do with children other than ignore them. His own childhood had been a hazy mess of pain and tragedy, and he'd done his best to forget just about all of it.

Another man passed him, and once he had Billy’s eye he grinned broadly and actually lifted his hat all the way off his head. For one horrible second, Billy thought he might bow.

He wanted his knives. There was no familiarity to the situation at hand, and no Goodnight here to navigate it for him. He hadn’t felt this exposed in a long time, and all of his weapons save the hair pin were being cleaned and sharpened by the local blacksmith.

Pie still in hand Billy took a sharp right, and disappeared down the nearest alleyway.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The border between the land, and the actual town of Rose Creek was more of a polite fiction than anything else. There wasn’t a distinct moment when the dirt road became grass, more of a gradual progression of green sliding in and around the man-made buildings. Tall grasses pressed flush against the backs of the saloon, the bank, the barber shop, and crops of wildflowers leaned in as though trying to hear the latest gossip as it spilled from the open windows. 

Billy walked right into it, and kept walking until the buzz and shouts of the residents faded away. The mountains and Bogue's old mines were straight ahead, the black empty caves abandoned by the men in favor of jobs above ground where the wind and rain could touch their faces. Billy crossed the slow moving river, lifting the pie high over his head as the water swallowed him to the hip, and finally collapsed under a trio of tall leafy trees. He was sweat-soaked, and felt as though he'd gone a round with five men instead of taking a casual walk. He’d been promised his weakness was temporary. That didn’t mean it wasn’t irritating.

Setting the pie to the side, Billy flopped onto his back and sprawled across the sweet-smelling green grass. He covered his eyes with the back of his hand and waited for his heart to slow. A brief rest would rejuvenate him, but he had no intention of falling fully asleep. The spike of unease he'd felt in the town still lingered, and then deepened when he realized that he was not only unarmed; he was now unarmed, exhausted and alone.

He was getting sloppy. Just because he'd had someone to watch his back for the last ten years wasn't an excuse for getting sloppy. Sloppy led to dead, and he’d developed a taste for survival.  

The wind moved gently through the trees, and patterns of light and shadow chase themselves across Billy's face. There were song birds in its branches, their calls mingling with the gentle rush of the river water. He fully intended to sit back up, rest against the trunk, maybe smoke, but his exhausted body had other ideas. In-between one breath in the next Billy was pulled into a dark, deep sleep.   

 

 

* * *

 

  

By the time Billy woke the sun had crossed the sky, trailing fire in its wake and leaving the world in shades of rust red. The trees’ shadows had grown, stretching across the grass like long reaching fingers, and the song birds were silent.

Billy yawned. He rolled his head to the side as he waited for his sleep-muddled brain to clear, and came nose-to-nose with a rabbit.

It was a little thing, with dappled black and white fur and a nose that was twitching up a storm. It was happily chewing on something, and when it lifted its face to meet Billy's eye he saw that its mouth was full of blood. Crimson dripped down its chin as its jaws ground away at its meal, and its front paws didn't look much cleaner.

Billy pushed himself to his elbows. The movement should have sent the rabbit sprinting through the tall grass with a flash of its white tail. Instead it swallowed, and then began to wash.

Concerned, Billy trailed his fingers over his nose, his lips, his cheeks and his chin checking for fresh injuries. When he found nothing out of the ordinary he rubbed his eyes hard, hoping the pain would cause the hazy world to crystallize.

He hoped this was just the tail end of a nightmare following him into the waking world, but he doubted it. Sometimes Billy truly hated nature. Goodnight could go on and on about the beauty of the full moon, the poetry in a changing chilled season, the noble bearing of the prowling cougar, but he always left out how damn _eerie_ it all could be. Billy sat the rest of the way up with only a few pained grunts. He'd gotten stiff during his slumber. Standing was going to be a trial, but he was getting back to Rose Creek before sundown even if he had to crawl.

In one fluid movement, the rabbit halted its cleaning and shot to its hind legs with ears erect. Its new position gave Billy a clear view of the red splashed across its belly fur, but he didn't take the time to examine it. He was too busy following the creature's gaze, and praying he wasn't about to see a snake worming its way through the grass.

Instead, loping across the fields with his horrible cane and still healing leg was Goodnight. The mountains stood at his back, grand and dark against the horizon, and from Billy’s position it looked as though Goodnight had come tottering out of the mines. A god of the underworld traveling to the surface for a little conversation and company.

Goodnight waved the cane in greeting when he spotted Billy, and tramped his way over with all the grace and precision of a buffalo. With no small amount of huffing he collapsed next to the other man, and mopped the sweat off his brow with the back of his coat sleeve.  

“I have been all over this god damn scrap of wilderness looking for you. Why didn’t you tell someone-” he paused. “ _Mon cher_ , what’s wrong?”

“A rabbit-,” Billy started. He frowned and looked back but the creature was gone. All that remained was a very familiar circle of metal.“….ate my pie.”

And there was the mystery solved. The horror made hilarious. Half the raspberry pie was gone, and while he’d never met a rabbit with a sweet-tooth nature was a strange thing that bucked its own rules at every opportunity.  

“What?”

“I-” Billy waved his hand at the half-empty pie plate. “It doesn't matter. I fell asleep and I wasn't thinking clearly when I woke up. I got spooked.”

Goodnight’s fingers brushed against his forehead as if checking for fever.

“I'm fine,” Billy said. "It's nothing."

Looking unsure, Goodnight slipped his arm around Billy’s waist. He insistently tugged, and Billy let himself be pulled into Goodnight’s side.

"Just so you know, there’s a search party combing Rose Creek for you," Goodnight admitted.

Billy snorted. "Who let that loose?"

Goodnight shifted a little, and Billy grabbed the back of his jacket before he could do anything stupid like squirm away. "Ah, well me."

"Why?"

"Well, I couldn't find you, and in case you haven't noticed I'm not so light on my feet right now. When you didn’t show up for supper I got worried. I kept imagining that a wolverine was somewhere chewing on your rib bones."

"Not everything out here is trying to eat me," Billy said. He patted his pocket for a cigarette, and then frowned when he realized he was out. "Or maybe they are, but the smart ones want to fatten me up first." He motioned towards the pie. "See my spoils of war?"

Goodnight stuck his fingers into what was left of the dessert.

“Hmm,” he said after taking a taste. “It's delicious, but you don't like raspberries. Who took a bite out of it?”

"I'll tell you later," Billy said. “Where’d you disappear to? Before I got accosted by grateful town’s folk I was looking for _you_.”

Goodnight gave Billy a large wolfish smile.

“Your tooth grew back,” Billy said, dryly. “It’s a miracle.”

Goodnight  laughed. “The very nice dentist put a brand new one in. No charge. I just had to listen to him talk about how grateful he was for our help. It was a very uncomfortable afternoon. Him with his fingers in my mouth. Me pretending to listen to all that thankful gushing.”

Billy's stomach growled and Goodnight raised an eyebrow. Billy’d snuck out right before lunch, unable to listen to Faraday beg Vasquez for one more game of poker or watch Horne stutter through another awkward conversation with his thankful seamstress.   

“Here.” Goodnight reached into his pocket and came back with a handkerchief full of cherries. He dropped six of them into Billy’s open palm. “As always, my spoils are your spoils.”

Billy kissed him quick and hard. It was too dangerous to do much more out in the daylight, especially if the entirety of Rose Creek was on his trail, and besides his stomach needed attention first.

“You’re too far away from me,” Goodnight said, pressing his face into Billy’s hair. “This town is crawling under my skin, and keeping you too far away from me.”

“We could move into the hotel,” Billy said. He worked the flesh away from the fruit, and spat the pit into the grass.

Goodnight shook his head. “These people are incredibly grateful, but they're also incredibly god fearing. People have short memories, and I don't want to find out just how short Rose Creek's can be. Getting run out of here would be a very depressing ending to our victorious tale of gallantry and daring. Besides, we leave that sick house and we leave Horne with no one but Faraday for company."

"So long as Faraday doesn't try to shoot him I think they'd be fine," Billy said.

"You and Sam are going to be laughing about that for the rest of my life aren't you?"

Neither of them said anything about leaving. They both still needed time to heal, and time was the one thing they couldn’t barter for more of. Goodnight's hand cradled the back of Billy's head, and then moved higher his fingers burying themselves in Billy’s thick hair.

“What's this?”

Billy didn’t answer, too busy stealing the last six cherries out of Goodnight's handkerchief.

“Hold still," Goodnight said. “You have something here.”

"Goody,” Billy said. He spat two more cherry pits into the grass. “If you’re trying to braid a flower into my hair again I’ll throw you into that river. How did you avoid the river anyway?  I was soaked through when I crossed.”

But Goodnight didn’t answer. A horrified expression was sliding across the man’s face, an earthquake of terror destroying the peaceful moment they’d been enjoying. Billy’s stomach sank as Goodnight presented him with a long, brown owl feather.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every fandom I have to write something that's just really weird. I'm pretty sure that's what this is for Mag7. Enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

The soft jangling of tack and the _clip-clop_ of hooves broke through whatever spell the feathers had cast over Goodnight. He jumped to his feet brandishing his cane like a weapon, eyes wild and ready for a fight. Billy's entire body shrieked as he scrambled to stand beside him, his fingers flying for his hairpin, but he relaxed when the approaching rider came into view. 

 

"Are you going to swing that at me, old man?"  Vasquez asked. "I'm not above fighting the injured."

 

Goodnight huffed, and lowered his cane.   

 

"Billy, you're alive. _Bueno_. You'll be just in time to see the candlelight vigil the preacher set up for you."

 

Billy gaped at him. "What?"

 

Vasquez cackled. "The town is very worried about your disappearance."

 

"I went for a walk! I wasn't snatched from bed in the middle of the night!"

 

"What can I say," Vasquez said. "They adore you."

 

Billy groaned. "They're not going to cheer when I walk back into town are they?"

 

"Of course not. They’re going to cheer when you _ride_ back into town," Vasquez corrected. "Can either of you make the walk back?"

 

"Yes," Billy insisted.

 

"Of course," Goodnight agreed.

 

Vazquez dismounted. "You're both full of shit."

 

Handing the reins to Goodnight, Vazquez clicked his tongue a few times until another horse, this one attached to a lead rope, approached.

 

"I didn't know if I'd need to carry a body back with me," Vazquez said with a wink.

 

Billy rolled his eyes.

 

"Need a leg up?"

 

Billy snatched the reins from Vasquez and swung himself into the saddle. It wasn't pleasant, but he was pretty sure he hadn't torn anything. Goodnight grumbled a fair amount, but both of them were comfortably seated before the last rays of the setting sun disappeared. The full moon was a red blood spot against the sky, and it hung in the horizon like ripe fruit. Goodnight’s eyes were locked on the thing probably reading destruction in every crater and shadow. 

 

Billy reached a hand down for Vazquez, but the other man shook his head.

 

"I need the walk. I got a headache from listening to _guero_ bellyache about card tricks all day. The night air will be good for me."

 

Billy frowned. "You're sure?"

 

Vazquez hadn't been injured past cuts and bruises, but leaving him to walk alone in the newly minted dark didn't sit well with him.

 

"Yes, yes. If I need you I'll scream. Just make sure you go straight across the river. It's the fastest way back."

 

* * *

 

 

Vazquez hadn't been joking about the vigil, but Billy was so lost in the familiar comfort that came with riding shoulder-to-shoulder with Goodnight that he almost rode them straight into the cluster of concerned citizens. They’d gathered around the remains of the church, each of the cradling a lit candle and Billy sincerely hoped no one got too close to the burnt out husk of the building. One false move and they’d be praying in the dust. As the adults prayed, the Rose Creek children darted across the empty porches that lined Main Street with light cupped in their hands, moving with the speed and aimless direction that reminded Billy of fireflies.

 

"Don't they ever go to bed?" he asked. "Children still go to bed, right?"

 

He gently touched Goodnight’s shoulder, and felt his stomach drop when the other man winced. It dropped even further when he remembered that they were out of the opium cigarettes, and while surrounded by people he had no other way to fix the shadows stalking Goodnight’s mind.

 

"I'm tired," Billy said, wishing it was a lie. "I can't face a crowd."

 

Goodnight craned his neck in either direction before turning his horse.

 

"Right. Follow me. We'll travel up the outskirts."

 

They moved silently along the empty buildings, and the bits of darting light grew fainter, the murmur of the worried prayer softer until they were wrapped up in the quite dark.

 

They were dismounting when Billy heard the low familiar hooting of an owl. Goodnight, grip and grace lost in the face of surprise swore loudly. He slid to the ground, and landed on unbalanced feet. Billy was moving in to assist when the door to the school room flew open, and light spilled onto the grass, the yawning maw of the open door ready to swallow them both whole.

 

"Everything alright out here?"

 

The stranger now filling the doorway lifted the lantern in his hand, and for one brief second his eyes glowed yellow and catlike.

 

"It's followed us," Goodnight said, flatly.

 

Then the long, bespectacled face of Doctor Christopher Martin came into view, and Billy felt his spirits lift. The doc from two towns over who'd kept all the blood from seeping out of Billy's body would probably have something in his bag of tricks for Goodnight.

 

“Oh, Mr. Rocks. They found you!”

 

Billy slung Goodnight's arm over his shoulder, and pulled him to the porch. Goodnight dug his heels in, and Billy stopped not wanting to force him up the stairs.  

 

"That's Doc Christopher," Billy muttered. “You know him. It’s okay, Goody.”

 

"It's the owl come to greet us. He thinks he’s caught us off balance, but I am not so lost just yet."

 

Billy dug his fingers into the fabric of Goodnight's coat. As far as he knew Goodnight was unarmed, but he still had his cane. Billy knew better than most how much damage a cane in the hands of an angry man could do.  

 

The stairs creaked and groaned as the doctor descended. Billy spun Goodnight around, physically putting his own body between his partner and the nice doctor who'd offered to let Billy keep the lead retrieved from his collar bone.

 

"Gentleman, can I be of some assistance?"

 

A hand dropped to Billy's shoulder.

 

"I did ask you to stay put, Mr. Rocks. Your body took quite a beating. Pushing yourself will-"

 

Goodnight's cane came slicing through the dark on a direct course with the doctor's fingers. Billy grabbed it before it could connect, the impact making his palm sting and his arm dip.

 

"What the hell!? Mr. Robicheaux! What are you doing?"

 

"Goodnight," Billy said. "Stop it."

 

He could fix this. Turn them around, lock them both away in a hotel room until Goodnight calmed down and wasn't seeing phantoms everywhere. But the arm that held the cane aloft was starting to shake, and his legs felt like water. He wasn't sure how coordinated he could be while injured, exhausted and practically blind. He had limits, and just because he kept hopscotching over them didn't mean he could carry on like he was a god.

 

"Go back inside," he snapped at the doctor.

 

The weight of the hand disappeared, but Billy didn't dare turn around to see if Doc Christopher had gone sprinting for the town or for the school house.

 

"It's the owl, Billy," Goodnight insisted. "I saw his yellow eyes, and I am not about to let him collect."

 

"No, you're confused,” Billy said calmly. “That was the light against his glasses. It's okay. No one is here collecting."

 

Something hard pressed against Billy’s back, and he went still.

 

It was a particular feeling, the muzzle of a gun against your person, and one Billy was unfortunately familiar with. Most individuals aimed directly for the backbone, but this one was digging into the soft flesh above his kidney. He supposed it helped that this man probably knew where the kidney was.

 

"Well," said Doc Christopher. "That's not exactly true."

  

* * *

 

 

“I am going to need you to put your hands in the air.”

 

It was all so unfair. Billy had seen Doc Christopher put Faraday's guts back inside him, and in the right order no less. Men with that kind of healing skill should be opening up proper surgeries, and not poking guns into people's backs.

 

"Now I would really appreciate it, if we could all remain calm," Doc Christopher said. "I don't want this to get violent."

 

"You have a gun to my back," Billy said.

 

"A gun I have not fired."

 

“Yet,” Billy muttered.

 

“Hush now,” Doc Christopher said. “I need a word with your manager. Mr. Robicheaux, I have all the respect in the world for you. You were a great boon to our countrymen during the war. I have been given strict instructions not to harm you, but you attempt to hit me with that cane again and I will shoot Mr. Rocks."

 

It was too dark to get a good look at Goodnight's face, and Billy couldn't have said if he was with him or 1,000 miles away. Billy slowly angled his raised hands towards his head. If he could reach his hairpin this would be over with one quick slash to the doctor’s throat. The pad of his thumb had just brushed the tip when his hand was slapped away with a loud _smack_.

 

"Oh no, no. I have seen that hair stick in action," Doc Christopher said. "Let's put it away before someone gets hurt."

 

The pin was pulled out of Billy’s hair with one swift motion, and the freed strands fell into his eyes and down his neck. Billy was about to ask if he could tuck it behind his ears when his head was jerked back, and his vision was filled with the star-studded sky.

 

 _I'm going to kill you for touching me,_ Billy thought.

 

Doc Christopher whistled. "Well! Isn't this mess as soft as spider-silk. Have you wrapped your fingers around any of this, Mr. Robicheaux?"

 

He gave Billy's head another pull.

_Your fingers,_ Billy thought. _The ones that made all those dainty stitches down my side. I'm going to break every single one of them. Once knuckle at a time._

 

"You ever thought about selling this fine mess of hair?" Doc Christopher asked. "You could make a pretty penny if you found the right wigmaker."

"Stop that," Goodnight said, low and furious.

 

The grip on his hair didn't loosen, and Billy added 'headache' to the list of ailments he was going to have to deal with that night.

 

"You're right of course," Doc Christopher said. "I'm getting distracted. Now, here's what's going to happen-"

 

"No," Goodnight said. "What's going to happen is you're going to tell me what your business is, and if you are very lucky I will convince Billy that killing you for touching his hair is just a bit over dramatic."

 

Billy gritted his teeth. He needed to _see_ Goodnight. He sounded okay, but that didn’t mean he _was_ okay. 

 

"Mr. Robicheaux-"

 

"If you've been told not to hurt me then explaining your business just might make me more agreeable. I am so much more fun when I'm agreeable. Billy can attest to that."

 

Billy rolled his eyes. It was a pity no one could see it.

 

"You've been ignoring your sister's correspondence," Doc Christopher said. "The way she tells it all eleven Robicheauxs have sent you a flood of letters, and you ain't responded to one."

 

Goodnight snorted.

 

"That pack of idiots made it very clear that they had no interest in my company years ago. Which is fine  since I have no interest in theirs. What do they want?"

 

"Ain't my business to know the details," Doc Christopher said. "But they want your attention, and your brother Adam was good to me after the war. I went from being a tent medic to an honest to god doctor under his wing, so I volunteered to ride into this land of death to deliver his message properly."

 

He laughed.

 

"I thought it would be easy. That you'd be wasting away in some saloon, but you're practically running the show on this prairie? Even got yourself a servant. Did you steal him from one of those railroad gangs?"

 

 _Teeth after fingers,_ Billy decided. _Maybe his nose._

 

"Get back on that horse, Mr. Robicheaux," Doc Christopher instructed. "I know you ain't armed past that cane, and ain't no one inside neither. Your bear of a friend is being wooed with a home cooked dinner, and the annoying one is drinking himself to death with a whore. Mr. Rocks and I will mount up after you're done, and we'll all take a ride to the nearest railway station. You've been called home."

 

There was a long stretch of silence.

 

The next time someone offered to work on all of Billy knives at once he was going to sit there, and pointedly stare until they were done. That way they'd be finished in under an hour and he'd never be so defenseless again.

 

"Alright," Goodnight said. "Just loosen your grip on my friend there. You're hurting him. Now, Billy, don't go causing a fuss. He listens to me, you understand, so you should have no trouble."

 

The grip on Billy's hair loosened, and his gaze dropped in time to see Goodnight turn away in the dark. One hand reached for the saddle horn, but the other dangled by his hip. His three middle fingers twitched ever so slightly. To anyone else it would have been nothing more than a faint jump in the muscles. Billy relaxed his shoulders, and waited. 

 

When Goodnight whirled around it was with a pistol in his hand. He pulled the trigger, but gave an enraged shout when nothing happened. The gun had jammed. Luckily, Doc Christopher had quick reflexes and no fortitude which meant he was throwing himself out of the way the moment he saw the danger.

 

Free to move, Billy twisted and lunged. The two men crashed to the ground in a tangle, but before the pistol could show its face Billy had grabbed the other man’s wrist. He slammed it onto the dirt with a force that caused Doc Christopher’s hand to open, and the weapon to drop into the grass.

 

“God damn it!”

 

Doc Christopher grabbed a fistful of Billy’s shirt, and was dragging him closer when Billy’s knee shot up and sank into the doctor’s soft belly. 

 

A _wush_ of air was the only warning Billy got when Goodnight joined the fight. His cane came down hard atop the doctor's head, and the man howled with pain. Billy felt the breeze as it sailed by his face a second time, this time breaking several of the doctor’s teeth and crushing the thin wire glasses. It came up again, and Billy rolled away, not wanting to get between Goodnight and the other man when this particular weapon was involved.  

 

“You god damn son of a bitch! You’re collecting nothing from me! You hear! _Nothing_!”

 

Goodnight was yelling and the world was spinning. Billy closed his eyes, and sucked deep breaths into his lungs which did nothing but cause the stitches in his side to scream with real pain, and his ribs to join in solidarity. He was balancing on the deck of ship heading seaward. He was cornered in the stall of a barn getting his own ribs destroyed. He was crouched in the grass of Rose Creek listening to Goodnight beat a man to death.

 

When he opened his eyes again, Doc Christopher was a still, silent mess, and Goodnight was done.


	4. Chapter 4

The last blow to Doc Christopher’s skull broke the cane into two jagged pieces. Panting, Goodnight dropped them, and wiped the beading sweat off his forehead with the back of his coat sleeve. He was sick in the grass, a messy affair that brought up everything he’d ingested throughout the day, and then washed his mouth out with the last of the water in his canteen. Strange, only a few hours ago Doc Christopher had been warning him about the dangers of overexerting himself.

 

A search of the body amounted to Billy’s hairpin, two thin silver coins, and three letters wrapped in oil paper. Goodnight rubbed the coins together, a move that created a low scratching sound, and considered placing them over the man’s eyes. Unfortunately, the exact location of those eyes was now a little unclear so instead he tucked them into his vest pocket for later use.

 

Billy was crouched in the grass, his head haloed by the full red moon. Dark wisps of his hair covered his face like a veil, and the sight of him swaying with exhaustion made Goodnight's guts clench. There was no love lost between the Robicheaux siblings because there had never been any love among them to begin with, but he'd thought the complex roots of his family tree had released him when he'd ridden for the West. It appeared that he’d been wrong.

 

“Goodnight?” Billy asked.

 

There was a worried expression on Billy’s face that Goodnight hadn’t seen for at least fifteen minutes.

 

“Goodnight,” Billy repeated. “Are you with me?”

 

Lord help him, Billy was trying to stand. Leaning heavily on his uninjured leg, Goodnight hurriedly limped to his dazed partner. He’d seen Billy snarl his way through all states of physical health and mental distress, but he'd also seen him come crashing down when he pushed too hard like a much beloved Icarus. 

 

Ignoring the broken cane and equally broken body behind them, Goodnight sunk to his knees, and wrapped Billy up in his arms.

 

“Hey honey,” he said. “I’m right here.”

 

Billy dropped his head, and buried his face into Goodnight’s neck.

 

“Horne won’t be happy to hear you’re armed again,” Billy said, voice muffled.

 

“What he don’t know won’t hurt him,” Goodnight said. “And I only promised to avoid my gun while sleeping in that sick room with him. You think I went tromping around this land unarmed? You may not have noticed, but Rose Creek is a strange little folktale of a town that I do not fully trust.”

 

He was gently feeling his way up Billy’s sides searching for broken ribs or reopened stitches. It all felt okay, but he wanted a closer look, and that would be easier under the solid school house roof than it would under the vast spangle of appearing stars. He ran his hand through Billy’s hair, and kissed the side of his head.

 

“Let's go inside. I’ll help you stand, if you help me walk.”

 

"We can't leave a dead body out here," Billy said.

 

"Why not?" Goodnight asked. "We'll just let nature reclaim the flesh and blood it helped to nurture. The great cycle of life continues right under our noses."

"Is nature going to take care of the stink?"

 

_"_ It's the wounded that get carried off the field, Billy," Goodnight said. "The enemy gets left to putrefy. Besides, I’m hoping a coyote will drag the doc off before that problem rears its odorous head. Now, on three we both lean on one another and we stand. Ready? One, two-”.

 

* * *

 

There was blood around Billy's stitches, but nothing had reopened. The multitude of bruises across his torso were fading splotches of yellow and green, but Goodnight suspected he’d find new ones blossoming as bright as bluebells come morning.  

 

By the time he was satisfied with Billy’s condition a fine tremor was plaguing Goodnight’s hands. He rested them on the skin of Billy’s naked stomach, and when Billy wrapped his hands around his wrists to ground him Goodnight _hummed_ his thanks.

 

Squinting at him in the flickering candlelight, Billy pressed the pad of his thumb to Goodnight's cheek. It stung a bit, as though he’d nicked himself shaving.

 

"You’re cut here."

 

Goodnight took Billy’s hand, kissed the knuckles, and laughed at the other man’s exasperated eye roll.

 

"Bit of glass from his spectacles must have jumped up and bit me," Goodnight said. “It’s fine.”

 

The shaking in his hands was becoming more pronounced, and he expected he had a pack of nightmares waiting for him, but he let Billy tug him onto the bed. It was uncomfortable, the two of them curled this close in the unbearable humidity, but Goodnight was much better at settling into discomfort than he'd ever been at swimming in luxury.

 

He kicked his boots off, and then reached into his pants pocket to retrieve Billy's hairpin. When the hand emerged he found the sharp bit of metal laying side-by-side one of the owl feathers he'd fished from Billy's hair less than an hour ago.

 

“Oh.”

 

Billy's fingers came into view, the chipped nails and scarred knuckles more loved and familiar to Goodnight than his own reflection. He snatched Goodnight's handful of prophecy, and brought them close to his face.

 

"You have the nickname," Billy said. "But I bring just as much death into the world as you do. Maybe more."

 

Goodnight opened his mouth to argue, and then sneezed when Billy tickled him under the nose with the feather.

 

"If death is following you," Billy said. "If what you have aren’t just dreams, and something is stalking you in the dark then it's doing a very bad job."

 

Goodnight blinked. "What?"

 

"Death set down rules. You broke them, and yet you’re still alive."

 

“I’m alive," Goodnight argued. “But every piper demands his pay. I cheated him, and now he’s got his sights on you.”

 

Billy shrugged. "Death has been stalking me since I arrived in this country. You had twenty years before you were the angel of death. I was the lone survivor of a camp flu that killed my father when I was ten. I was a murderer at thirteen. Maybe I brought this to you. Maybe I dragged you into its path, and cursed you with my troubles first."

 

If Billy hadn't been at the very edge of his strength, Goodnight would have shoved him off the bed for a comment like that. Instead, he turned his head to kiss him hard. He broke away, but left his forehead pressed against Billy's.

 

"Now you're just being an idiot," Goodnight grumbled.

 

Billy crushed the feather in the palm of his hand.

 

"Why? My troubles aren't your troubles?"

 

"Of course they are," Goodnight said. "But mine are yours too, and it doesn’t matter either way because this is different. This was born from my past sins, and I can't protect you from it."

 

Billy laughed his smile a bright crescent moon in the darkness.

 

"You are so smart," Billy started. "How are you so stupid right now? You tell all these stories! Nothing but stories all day, and all night but you still can't you see what's wrong with the one you keep repeating."

 

"Well, if I'm so stupid you better enlighten me then, Professor Rocks."

 

“Nothing has changed. According to you the owl just came for me, and now it’s-what was the word?" Billy paused to think. "'Purifying' outside. We handled it. The same way we handle angry white men, and wild coyotes, and bandits, and old friends with suicide missions. We handled those things Goody because we handled them together. We're a team.”

 

“Of course we are,” Goodnight said.

 

"You claim death is hunting you, but you’re wrong. I'm telling you it's hunting _us_." Billy yawned. “And at this point we scare it.”

 

It would have been a more profound statement if Billy hadn't yawned in the middle of it, but it still caused a wave of ice water to slide through Goodnight's veins. It felt too much like a issuing a challenge to the universe.

 

"It doesn't know what to do with us," Billy murmured, his head dropping onto Goodnight's chest. "It's used to fair fights. One-on-one, but it can't fight us like that."

 

Goodnight didn't agree. Hell he didn't believe Billy agreed. Billy didn't spin stories. He was too practical a man to think of death as anything but an eventual inevitability, but maybe this once he was spinning one for Goodnight.

 

"I'll think it over," Goodnight said.

 

He wouldn't. Billy was wrong. He wasn't wrong about most things, but he was wrong about this. But arguing with him would keep him awake and he needed to sleep. He needed to heal, and he needed Goodnight to let him.

 

"It's a nice idea though, _cher_. A real nice idea."

 

* * *

 

That night, in Goodnight’s dreams, the dead reached for him. Blood trickled out of their boots as they crowded across the shore, and the sand became dark and heavy with the added liquid. Coins glittered in the spots where their eyes should have been, and they scratched at the silver disks despairingly, but none came loose. A swaying mass of sobbing boys stood together, unable to cross the river and join Goodnight who waited on the other side ruthlessly picking them off one-by-one.

 

He jerked awake to find Horne standing at the foot of the bed with an axe in his hands.

 

Billy was curled tight against Goodnight’s side, and Goodnight was glad that they hadn’t moved away from each other in sleep. If Horne came at them via Billy's side of the bed Goodnight could roll them both to the floor, and if he came at them via Goodnight’s side he could shove Billy out of the way. What to do if Horne came at them from straight on was a different problem.

 

“You slept in your coat,” Horne said.

 

He’d also slept in his pants, his vest, and one of his boots hadn’t entirely come off, but of course his gun belt was on the floor and out of reach. That was just the kind of week Goodnight was having.

 

He clicked his tongue atop the roof of his dry mouth, needing to create some saliva before he could respond.

 

“That I did.”

 

Horne’s gaze swung to where Goodnight’s arm was still trapped under Billy.

 

“Looks uncomfortable.”

 

Not that it mattered much where his gun belt was since the pistol was still jammed. Goodnight wasn’t partial to blaming Billy for things, but if they were killed in bed by an overzealous grizzly bear with an axe he was going to give him a long talking to once they got to the afterlife. Death was scared of them his ass.

 

“Oh, it’s not too bad,” Goodnight said.

 

And didn’t that just present Goodnight with another long-pondered problem. What was he going to do if they weren’t in the same afterlife? Goodnight was still a tremble before God type of Catholic, but Billy didn’t believe in anything. What was he supposed to say, “Excuse me St. Peter, but where would a Korean fellow of no particular religious belief be staying?”

 

“Doc Christopher’s outside,” Horne said.

 

Goodnight grinned. “What’s left of him is outside, yes.”

 

Because if St. Peter’s answer was anything less than “We put those people in a very nice meadow about two miles north of here. Safe travels!” things were going to get ugly. Goodnight hadn’t been raised to go to war with Heaven, but he’d go to war with a lot less for Billy Rocks.

 

“That your work?” Horne asked.

 

Goodnight nodded. “He put a gun to Billy’s back. Threatened some violence. We handled it.”

 

Horne’s gaze was steady and unblinking. The thin morning sunlight drifted in through the windows, and skipped across the gleaming edge of the sharpened blade. He rubbed a large hand across his beard.

 

“Forest would be an awfully quiet place if only one bird was allowed to sing.”

 

Considering the events, the statement didn’t fill Goodnight with confidence, but he nodded sagely along with the big man’s words.

 

“And the good lord teaches us judge not lest ye be judged.”

 

“Can't argue with that,” Goodnight said encouragingly.

 

Horne nodded once, and then headed for the door. He paused at the threshold.

 

“He’ll need to be buried,” Horne said. “I’d do it myself, but before his terrible betrayal Doc Christopher advised me not to engage in any strenuous activities. I imagine grave digging would be one of them. I’ll go find Vasquez. See if he’s up for it.”

 

“That is a good idea,” Goodnight said. “And if you see Sam, send him my way. I’d like my cut of the profit to be just a little bit larger considering the extra work I just put in.”

 

Horne gave Goodnight a stern look, and then walked out the door swinging shut behind him.

 

“Billy,” Goodnight said softly. “I cannot believe you just slept through that.”

 

* * *

 

Billy also managed to sleep through Goodnight untangling himself from their respective positions. They’d been lucky with Horne, but one streak of good luck wasn’t enough for him to throw caution to the wind, especially if a crowd of folks was about to show up and gawk at yet another corpse in the street. 

 

There was a chair on the school house porch, and he dragged it across the wood into a cooler, shadowy spot near the door. They were out of cigarettes and alcohol, and his only other comfort needed his rest so Goodnight was forced to face the first of the letters sober and alone.

 

The paper was the same cream-colored stationary he remembered seeing on his sister’s desk what felt like a hundred years ago, and it was written in the same graceful looping scrawl he’d recognize anywhere.

 

The war had destroyed so many families. The men lost to battles, starvation and disease. The women to grief, violence and other things too dark to name, but somehow each and every Robicheaux sibling had survived. This was not the first time Goodnight wished for a happier outcome.

 

With a sigh he unfolded the letter, started to read, and that was where the new trouble started.  

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, @20thcenturyvole requested “Billy and Goodnight surviving the battle (just) and having to stay in Rose Creek while they recover." So right, here we are.


End file.
